"Ida Red," before "Maybelline"
We all know that the country tune Ida Red became Chuck Berry's Maybelline in 1955. But it had made previous stops along the way--for example, as the melody for Eddie Kirk and Cliffie Stone's 1951 Freight Train Breakdown. Is this gem of a performance Western Swing? Rockabilly? Country jazz? (Or a combination of the three?) To use the UFO-documentary cliche: you decide.

sellers description : "This is a very unusual 1 1/2 yards long photo of a construction site. The photo includes horse drawn wagons, the work crew, a crane and what appears to be a steam power source. ----- The photo isn't signed or dated but, It appears to be from the late 1800's to the early 1900's. The image measures 51 1/2" long x 7 1/2" high. The photo is in very good condition with 1 minor crease on the front and light soiling on the back where it was rolled up. ----- I'll ship in a tube."

not won - i dropped out at the selling price of $57.89 - this would have made a terrific piece for me (construction site subject matter and all) but panoramas are a well sought after genre and a real one like this with unique subject matter could have gone for a good deal more than i was willing to pay. they will keep the detail photos up for a very little while if you wanna check. boo hoo[link] [add a comment]

Like many, I discovered Unarius through their wild psychedelic shows on public-access cable TV. Founded in 1954, Unarius is a UFO cult based in Southern California who not only believe in aliens ("the Space Brothers") that guide and protect us, but also in reincarnation - one founding Unarian wrote a book called "I, Bonaparte" chronicling his past life as Napoleon.

This has turned into Music Videos for Maniacs lately, hasn't it? But since the Unarians don't have any CDs available yet ("Coming Soon!" their website promises), let's watch the Unarius choir known as And The Angels Sing sing: "Starship Hope"

The Space Brothers were supposed to arrive in 1974. The date got pushed back to '75, '76, and 2001. The Space Brothers may be flakes, but Unarians still have starship hope.

The Olsen Twin Towers.
Yes, they are tall, thin, and disorienting to behold, but that shouldn't stop Mary Kate and Ashley from erecting their own sister buildings that pay tribute to youth, fame, wealth, and the need to purge oneself of internal obstacles to self-fulfillment. Which tower is which? You'll know once you get better acquainted.

slow news day (stadium = zzzzz) / this post aint too damn funny either - thats it for a while with the parodies around here[link] [add a comment]

DEFAULT SCHEME #1 - All plans, visions, proposals, schemes, ideas, concepts, intentions, surmises, hunches, impositions, and suggestions for the site will be shredded, and composted in situ (used for temporary fill). All future re-development schemes will require that all players throw half-a-million dollars each into the hole, i.e., before they are allowed to add their shredded documents. Disgraced politicians, bureaucrats, land speculators, and architects past their sell-by-dates will be dumped into the hole as well. On the one-hundredth anniversary of 9/11 (in 2101), the site will be flooded with sea-water by carving a huge channel through Battery Park City and the Real will be permitted to colonize the abyss. (GK)

Last August, after Port Authority officials demanded he show them a financial plan, Mr. Silverstein and consultants from the financial services firm Morgan Stanley made a presentation to the Port Authority's commissioners that was met with deep skepticism from several board members, according to officials at the authority. The commissioners questioned the rents that Mr. Silverstein projected for his new buildings. They also believed that he was overly optimistic in predicting that he would be able to fill the buildings with tenants in a relatively short time, something that would be critical to his ability to pay the agency its rent and secure further financing.

Deal Is Struck on Property Needed for Trade Center (June 5, 2005)
That lingering concern colored the Port Authority's latest exploration of how to reduce Mr. Silverstein's role at ground zero. As the security concerns over the Freedom Tower began percolating this spring, top Port Authority officials, including the executive director, Kenneth J. Ringler, the chairman, Anthony Coscia, and Vice Chairman Charles A. Gargano, discussed an informal proposal to divvy up the site, according to officials at the agency.

The idea, the officials said, would be to have Mr. Silverstein build the Freedom Tower and a second office tower across Greenwich Street. Then, in exchange for a reduction in the developer's lease payments, the Port Authority would get control of the site of two future towers on Church Street, south of the planned PATH train station at Fulton Street, which the agency is building at a cost of more than $2 billion.

That would give the Port Authority more of a free hand in developing the retail component over a large swath of the site. It would also, the officials contend, allow them to build a pair of low buildings to house some of the retail space, bring back street life and ultimately serve as the place holders for office buildings that could be erected when there is more demand for commercial space in Lower Manhattan.

IN its not-so-brief and thoroughly unhappy life, ground zero has been a site for many things: tragedy and grief, political campaigns and protests, battling architects and warring cultural institutions, TV commercials and souvenir hustlers. Perhaps it was inevitable we'd end up at pure unadulterated farce.

That's where we are as of this Memorial Day weekend. A 1,776-foot Freedom Tower with no tenants - and no prospect of tenants - has been abruptly sent back to the drawing board after the Marx Brothers-like officials presiding over the chaos acknowledged troubling security concerns about truck bombs. But truck bombs may be the least of the demons scaring away prospective occupants. The simple question that no one could answer the day after 9/11 remains unanswered today: What sane person would want to work in a skyscraper destined to be the most tempting target for aerial assault in the Western world? As if to accentuate this obvious, if frequently suppressed, psychological bottom line, news of the Freedom Tower's latest delay was followed like clockwork by a Cessna's easy penetration of supposedly secure air space near the White House, prompting panicky evacuation scenes out of the 50's horror classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

The FreedomTower, with or without its fancy spire, is an unnecessary building. The planned skyscraper, which will contain 2.6 million square feet of commercial office space, doesn’t have a single tenant – an unsurprising fact, since the demand for commercial office space in lower Manhattan is so small that it can barely be said to exist. The tower, it seems, is being built not to ennoble, enliven, or enrich the city but to satisfy the narrow, self-interested agendas of Silverstein, who leased the TwinTowers in 2001, and the Port Authority, which build the WorldTradeCenter and still controls the land. Silverstein, for his part, is largely building with insurance money instead of borrowing, as developers usually do, and he figures that he will be well positioned in the unlikely event that the lower Manhattan office market rebounds. Meanwhile, the Port Authority receives ten million dollars a month in rent that Silverstein still pays, under the terms of his lease.

But judging from Tuesday's weak-kneed decision by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission to approve a scaled-back expansion of the Whitney Museum of American Art, certain New Yorkers have failed to catch on. To them, apparently, the overreaching goal is saving what's old - as if the loss of an undistinguished brownstone parallels the razing of a beloved landmark.

Essentially, for the sake of preserving a humdrum brownstone facade on Madison Avenue, the commission embraced a substitute design for the museum that transforms a generously proportioned public entrance into a more confining experience. The architect, Renzo Piano, drafted the alternative - which would save that brownstone, while demolishing another - when the museum realized that the addition was in danger of being voted down by the commission.

Aside from weakening a promising design, the commission's stubbornness proves that it is unable to distinguish between preserving the city's architectural legacy and embalming it. This is particularly galling given that the commission steadfastly refuses to meet on Edward Durell Stone's endangered 60's "lollipop" building at 2 Columbus Circle - a building that is far more essential to the city's historical fabric.

im in total agreement with ouroussoff on the whitney expansion and stones 2 columbus circle

Taken together, the two cases imply a complete disconnect with the changing realities of preservation in New York City. It is as if the commission believes that New York is still living under the threat of tabula rasa Modernism.

We no longer live in the 1960's. There is no Robert Moses, with the power to bulldoze entire neighborhoods in the name of urban progress. Jane Jacobs, the activist who took him on, now lives in Toronto. The old tradition-vs.-Modernism battles are irrelevant. On the contrary, many Modernist buildings are now landmarks worthy of preservation.

The Admiral Twin Drive-in, which opened in 1951 as the Modernaire, was the backdrop for a scene in Francis Ford Coppola's 1982 film, "The Outsiders."

Volunteers painted the drive-in's rusted microphone stands, bathrooms, and concession stand. This week, workers will landscape the 38-acre site and update the marquee, ticket booth, and concession stand.

"Nine excellent 5" x 3 1/3" snapshot photos of a good sized tank being installed. It looks like a water tank. The photos are dated Oct. 1959. The first two pictures look like they have a blueish tint but they don't.The crane truck moving the tank has a Charleston WVA address on the door. The smaller flatbed trailer truck says Fred C. Burns Marlinton WVA."